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AUTHOR: 


RICHMOND,  OLIFFE 


TITLE: 


CLASSICS  AND  THE 
SCIENTIFIC  MIND 

PLACE: 

EDINBURGH 

DA  TE : 

1919 


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COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


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Richmond,  Oliffe  Legh. 
Classics  and  the  scientific  mind{:hrmicrof orm].{:bAn  Inaugural  Lecture  h 

Edinburgh, JibJames  Thin,}:cl919 
29  p, 

ORIG 

08-21-91 


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CLASSICS  AND  THE 
SCIENTIFIC  MIND 

^n    Inaugural    Lecture    delivered    in    the 
University  of  Edinburgh^  i  ^th  October  1 9 1 9 


BY 


OLIFFE   LEGH    RICHMOND,    M.A. 

Professor  of  Humanity 


EDINBURGH 
JAMES  THIN,  54,  55,  AND  56  South  Bridge 

PUBLISHER  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY 

I919 


CLASSICS  AND  THE    SCIENTIFIC 

MIND 


The  first  words  addressed  by  me  to  an  Edinburgh  audience 
must  be  words  of  humble  and  reverent  piety  to  the  dead. 

I  have  been  elected  to  fill  a  Chair  which  has  been  held 
by  a  line  of  distinguished  men.  I  have  boyish  memories 
of  the  families  of  Professor  Sellar  and  Professor  Goodhart ; 
and  their  colleague  at  Glasgow,  Professor  G.  G.  Ramsay, 
vouched  for  me  at  the  font.  Little  did  I  dream  in  early 
days  that  I  should  ever  be  enthroned  amid  the  austere 
sanctities  of  a  Scottish  professorship ;  and  the  feelings  of 
real  awe  with  which  I  regarded  such  thrones  quicken  in  me 
now  a  consciousness  all  too  keen  of  my  new  and  unex- 
pected responsibilities.  I  am  called  to  follow  one  who 
conferred  fresh  and  individual  lustre  upon  this  Chair ;  one 
who  gave  himself  for  his  pupils  to  a  degree  hardly  to  be 
imagined  by  any  who  were  not  in  contact  with  him — by 
any  who  cannot  examine  upon  the  spot  the  evidence  of  his 
far-reaching  sympathy  and  zeal  or  the  fruits  of  his  inspira- 
tion. He  would  not  have  had  it  otherwise  than  that  he 
should  die  in  harness,  to  the  last  unsparing  of  his  strength 
for  the  sake  of  his  Edinburgh  men  and  women. 

"  Si  monumentum  requiris,  circumspiceP  Hardie's  monu- 
ment is  in  the  hearts  of  all  Edinburgh  men  and  women 
for  whom  he  ever  worked,  and  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
any  other  sort  of  monument  is  so  well  worth  winning. 


But  ever  since  my  election  last  May,  I  have  been  both 
obsessed  and  inspired  rather  by  my  personal  duty  to  those 
younger,  unforgotten  dead  through  whose  sacrifice  I,  and 
all  of  you,  are  here  to-day,  free  and  in  full  hope  of  life. 
The  schoolmaster  and  the  college  lecturer  have  had  to 
mourn  a  far  greater  toll  of  personal  bereavements  than 
any  other  classes  of  men.  Generation  after  generation  of 
pupils  has  been  mown  down ;  and  who  will  deny  that  an 
altogether  undue  proportion  of  our  very  r^oblest  were  taken 
from  us  ? 

I  say,  then,  that  it  is  impossible  for  me,  who  have  in- 
gloriously  survived  this  fiery  ordeal,  to  inaugurate  my 
career  here  among  you  without  making  it  clear  that  for 
the  next  decade  all  our  work  together  will  be  carried  out 
with  the  full  consciousness  of  what  it  has  cost  the  founders 
of  the  new  age.  It  is  our  difficult  but  sacred  duty  to  make 
good  in  part  the  lost  contributions  of  all  those  brilliant 
brains  to  Learning  and  of  all  those  brave  kind  hearts  to 
the  moral  forces  of  which  our  distracted  times  will  stand 
so  sorely  in  need.  This  sentiment  all  over  the  world  will 
bind,  let  us  hope  for  long  years,  the  brotherhood  of  scholars 
more  closely  than  ever  together,  and  give  it  added  strength 
and  influence.  Before  my  induction  I  had  taken  part  in 
but  two  public  acts  of  this  University — the  Laureation  of 
the  Field -Marshal,  and  its  Address  of  Congratulation  to 
the  young  University  of  Dalhousie  at  Halifax,  in  the  new 
Scotland  over  the  water.  You  will  not  have  forgotten  the 
earnest  call  to  the  Universities  made  by  the  great  Scottish 
soldier.  I  venture  to  quote — because  the  monumental 
quality  of  Latin  suits  so  well  the  expression  of 
reverent  duty — the  last  sentences  of  the  Address  which 
our  Senate  has  sent  to  Dalhousie  for  its  centenary  cele- 
brations, sentences  framed  indeed  for  friends  at  a  distance 
but  whose  sense  is  common  to  us  all : — 


"  Orbe  terrarum  uix  tandem  pacaio,  humanitate  ac  ius- 
titia  uindicata,  nobis  artium  liberalium  antistitibus,  physicae 
et  mathematicae,  legum  et  medicinae  cultoribus,  pro  rebus 
splendide  peractis  spern  certani  et  fructum  auguramur. 

"  Liceat  modo  nobis,  o  fratres.piae  laudationi  rite  adsentiri^ 
dum  tristi  gaudio  roborati  memoratis,  ut  decet,  futuri  saeculi 
conditoreSy  qui  libertatis  uniuersae  sacramentum  pio  amore 
magnanimi  ac  morte  sanxerunt.^* 

You  will  remember  the  first  words  of  i^neas,  indeed 
the  first  mention,  in  the  ^neid,  of  the  name  of  that  founder 
of  a  new  age.  "  Swart  night  broods  on  the  deep.  The 
heavens  thundered ;  with  myriad  fires  flashes  the  upper 
air,  and  all  things  bode  present  death  to  the  hero-band. 
Straightway  ^Eneas'  frame  grows  limp  and  chill ;  he 
groans,  and  with  twin  palms  outstretched  towards  the  stars 
thus  gives  tongue :  *  O  thrice  and  four  times  blessed,  who 
before  their  fathers'  eyes,  beneath  Troy's  lofty  ramparts, 
had  the  fortune  to  find  death !  O  Diomede,  bravest  of 
the  Danaan  race !  That  upon  Ilium's  plains  to  fall  was 
not  mine,  and  at  the  stroke  of  thy  right  hand  to  pour  out 
this  life ;  there,  where  fierce  Hector  lies  beneath  Achilles* 
spear,  and  giant  Sarpedon,  where  Simois  has  snatched 
beneath  his  waters  so  many  shields  and  helms  and  brave 
bodies  of  heroes  and  tosses  them  on  the  tide.* " 

O  terque  quaterque  beati 
Quis  ante  ora  patrum  Troiae  sub  moenibus  altis 
Contigit  oppetere  !     O  Danaum  fortissime  gentis 
Tydide  !  mene  Iliacis  occumbere  campis 
Non  potuisse  tuaque  animam  banc  effundere  dextra, 
Saeuus  ubi  Aeacidae  telo  iacet  Hector,  ubi  ingens 
Sarpedon,  ubi  tot  Simois  correpta  sub  undis 
Scuta  uirOm  galeasque  et  fortia  corpora  uoluit  ? 

• 

How  many  of  us  have  prayed  in  moments  of  doubt  that 
we  too  might  have  died  "  beneath  Troy's  lofty  ramparts," 

B 


6 


turning  like  ^neas  from  the  future's  burdens  in  a  world 
left  desolate ! 

But  we  who  have  been  fated  to  survive  must  never 
lose  sight  of  the  promised  city  of  the  regeneration — 

I  will  not  cease  from  mental  fight, 
Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand. 

We  return  from  to-day  to  the  normal  courses  of  this 
University  ;  yet  how  can  our  course  be  normal  in  more 
than  its  syllabus  and  time-tables?  The  bald  framework 
of  our  studies  may  be  the  same,  but  we  are  not  the  same — 
the  men  and  women  who  must  fill  in  the  details  and  give 
the  structure  reality.  We,  both  students  and  teachers,  are 
conscious  as  never  before  of  an  incalculable  debt  and  of 
a  responsibility  for  the  future  almost  greater  than  we 
can  bear.  This  is  no  season  for  idling ;  and  there  are 
literally  thousands  of  men  and  women  clamouring  for 
the  places  of  any  such  idlers  and  unable  to  obtain 
the  desired  University  education  for  sheer  want  of 
room.  But  it  is  a  season,  such  as  may  never  return, 
of  self-criticism,  of  the  testing  of  ideals  and  of  practice 
in  the  light  of  what  the  last  five  years  have  taught 
us;  and  students  and  parents  have  every  right  to  ask 
that  no  intellectual  lumber,  no  outworn  and  merely 
conventional  trappings  of  education,  should  survive  into 
the  new  age. 

If  one  felled  a  wood  to  build  a  house,  when  six  trees 
would  have  amply  sufficed,  the  rest  of  the  logs  would  be 
lumber;  and  having  so  much  of  it  lying  about,  one 
would  be  tempted  to  give  the  house  a  high  fence  and 
heavy  shutters  and  double  doors  afid  an  uncomfortable 
crowd  of  furniture.  But  it  might  have  been,  more  healthy 
and  more  beautiful  if  we  had  left  the  rest  of  the  trees 
standing  to  shelter  the   house  or  give  shade  at   need, 


while  our  rooms  allowed  space  for  free  movement  and 
our  windows  stood  wide  open  for  the  uninterrupted  view 
of  things  near  and  far. 

Am  I  not  right  in  thinking  that  there  is  a  temptation 
in  Classical  studies  to  overcrowd  the  details,  to  confuse 
means  with  ends,  to  go  on  hacking  at  the  trees  merely  to 
keep  the  axe  sharp,  to  go  on  chopping  up  the  brushwood 
when  the  yard  is  full,  though  all  the  while  there  were 
fields  to  sow  and  tracks  to  clear  at  a  distance,  and  range 
beyond  mountain-range  to  explore  ?  We  must  not  do 
Latin  proses  just  for  the  sake  of  doing  Latin  proses, 
because  we  have  ground  our  axe  as  children  and  now 
cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees.  We  must  not  collect 
in  hideous  heaps  the  brushwood  of  grammatical  or  metrical 
abnormalities,  just  because  it  is  brushwood  and  we  have 
a  yard  handy.  We  want  to  learn  how  and  where  to  wield 
an  axe,  how  to  sharpen  it  and  how  to  keep  it  sharp ;  we 
want  enough  brushwood  on  hand  to  light  our  fires  with, 
not  enough  to  burn  the  house  down.  It  is  always  easy 
to  fetch  it  from  the  living  wood,  and  has  often  a  natural 
beauty  there,  which  we  remark  even  if  we  clear  it  away. 
But  once  on  our  heap  it  is  a  dead  thing,  even  though  we 
consider  it  intelligently  and  name  its  species,  and  compare 
it  favourably  or  unfavourably  with  other  sticks  we  have 
known. 

We  need  to  build  at  a  University,  each  of  us,  his  own 
house  of  Learning,  warmed  by  his  own  hearth-fire,  lit  by 
his  own  windows  steadily  facing  the  world ;  and  all  the 
teacher  can  do  is  to  suggest  and  guide  and  supply 
deficiencies,  while  building  and  maintaining  for  himself 
a  habitation  fit  to  inspire  others.  For  one  must  presume 
that  the  University  student  has  received  at  school  his 
first  training  in  the  use  of  the  axe  and  the  detection  of 
good  and  bad  wood ;  and  many  will  have  already  begun 


8 


the  building  of  that  house  of  comfort  and  security  for  the 
mind  But  a  sense  of  space  and  distance,  and  of  true 
proportion  and  perspective,  only  comes  with  maturity; 
it  should  be  conveyed  by  University  teachers,  teaching 
grown  men  and  women  to  think  for  themselves. 

I  propose  in  some  part  of  this  lecture  to  discuss  with 
you  frankly  the  meaning  of  Classical  education  and  Classical 
research,  even  descending  to  domestic  detail  of  administra- 
tion where  I  think  that  I  can  thereby  make  my  own 
purpose  plainer.  It  seems  to  me  probable  that  I  shall 
find  the  study  of  the  Classics  here  as  ardent  as  anywhere 
in  the  United  Kingdom  ;  the  very  stones  of  this  city  cry 
out  your  admiration  for  Greece  and  Rome.  But  it  also 
seems  probable  that  I  shall  find  them  backward,  from  my 
particular  point  of  view.  Your  tradition  has  demanded 
from  Professors  of  Humanity  so  much  direct  teaching,  and 
so  much  of  it  elementary,  that  it  has  been  exceptionally 
difficult  for  those  Professors  to  contribute  to  Higher 
Learning  on  their  own  account,  or  to  bring  their  pupils 
as  much  as  they  must  have  wished  to  do  into  contact 
with  the  original  work  and  broader  aspirations  of  the 
leaders  of  our  clan.  But  the  names  of  Sellar,  Goodhart, 
and  Hardie  witness  to  a  difficulty  in  part  overcome. 

I  shall  have  failed  if  I  cannot  keep  before  my  pupils  a 
view  of  the  whole  dominating  its  details,  and  breathe  even 
into  incidental  valleys  of  bones  the  spirit  of  life.  My 
special  aim  will  be  to  give  to  the  study  of  Latin  a  literary 
bias ;  and,  according  to  my  faith.  Literature  dwells  in  a 
temple  spacious  and  of  many  soaring  columns,  to  which 
Grammar  contributes  the  bases  indeed,  but  only  the  bases. 
Let  me  illustrate  in  detail. 

The  writing  of  Latin  prose  must  always  be  an  extremely 
important  subdivision  of  a  Latin  course,  and  Professor 
Hardie  has  left  us  a  handbook  which  it  will  not  be  easy 


to  surpass ;  but  it  is  an  exercise  which  both  student  and 
teacher  should  practise  and  understand  as  a  means  to 
an  end,  and  not  as  an  end  in  itself.  It  is  a  means  to 
acquiring  powers  of  concentration,  of  hard,  clear  thinkingi 
of  analysis  and  comparison,  of  distinguishing  the  relevant 
from  the  irrelevant,  of  seeing  things  through  the-  eyes  of 
others.  By  practising  composition  in  a  fully  inflected 
language,  which  is  the  basis  of  so  many  modern  languages 
and  has  profoundly  influenced  our  own,  we  obtain  a 
reasoned  insight  into  secrets  of  form  and  balance,  and 
into  the  lights  and  shades  of  feeling  and  expression, 
which  we  can  obtain  in  no  other  way  at  all.  By  handling, 
even  as  novices,  the  very  material  used  by  the  great 
masters  of  formal  style,  we  can  come  much  nearer  to 
their  point  of  view.  In  so  far  we  are  improving  our 
chances  of  acquiring  a  good  English  prose  style,  because 
if  we  learn  to  differentiate  alien  manners  by  analysis,  we 
are  more  capable  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  arts,  self- 
criticism.  By  all  means  let  us  take  pride  in  such  an 
exercise,  and  cultivate  thereby  those  moral  and  intellectual 
powers  it  assists,  and  incidentally  our  familiarity  with  the 
authors  imitated.  But  it  is  far  more  valuable  to  under- 
stand an  author's  point  of  view  and  environment  than 
to  acquire  a  trick  of  imitating  his  expression.  From  the 
one  we  can  draw  lessons  for  our  own  day ;  the  other  is  at 
best  a  tour  de  force.  Do  not  let  us  make  a  fetish  of  any 
tour  de  force^  or  see  even  in  a  so-called  "fair  copy" 
absolute  qualities  which  after  2000  years  we  can  as  little 
recover  as  the  exact  intonation  of  the  spoken  language. 
To  learn  Latin  we  must  read,  and  read  again,  the  Latin 
authors ;  to  understand  the  Roman  world  we  should  lose 
no  opportunity  of  studying  also  its  monuments.  Even 
those  students  who  penetrate  but  a  short  distance  should, 

in  a  University  course,  acquire  some   knowledge   of  an 

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ancient  world  surprisingly  like  our  own,  some  skill  in 
detecting  true  and  false  style  in  literature,  some  pride 
in  accuracy  and  clearness,  some  love  of  beauty  and  sense 
of  form. 

They  must  not  be  called  upon  merely  to  collect 
lumber,  but  to  work  with  purpose  and  with  conviction, 
adapting  means  to  ends;  they  must  not  be  forced,  for 
instance,  to  an  artificial  facility  in  Latin  composition 
disproportionate  to  their  knowledge  of  the  language,  but 
reading  and  insight  must  be  the  causes  of  a  true  progress 
of  the  mind ;  and  their  skill  in  classifying  grammatical 
anomalies  should  not  outrun  their  power  of  enjoying 
fine  literature. 

So  far  as  in  me  lies  I  shall  make  clear  in  the  years 
to  come  what  sort  of  an  ideal  of  ancient  learning  befits 
a  great  University,  training  minds  for  the  modern  world. 
Pass  classes  will  always  have  to  be  content  with  partial 
expedients;  it  may  be  very  difficult  to  create  in  such 
short  courses  an  atmosphere  favourable  to  ideals,  and  the 
version  and  the  grammar  paper  must  remain  the  chief 
educational  media  as  long  as  school-standards  and  school- 
discipline  of  the  mind  cannot  wholly  give  place  to  the 
love  of  learning  for  its  own  sake.  But  an  Ordinary  class 
at  a  University  must  receive  some  teaching  differentiating 
it  from  a  school  class  and  appealing  to  qiaturer  instincts ; 
it  must  not  drop  the  subject  after  a  year  without  an 
inkling  of  what  its  professor  and  others  greater  than  he 
are  really  thinking  about  and  working  at.  I  therefore 
regard  no  lecture  in  the  week  more  important  than  that 
which,  following  Professor  Hardie*s  precedent,  I  propose 
to  give  to  the  combined  Ordinary  class  on  literary 
subjects.  I  think  it  expedient  to  devote  the  bulk  of 
these  lectures  to  wider  literary  considerations  arising  out 
of  the  set  books  to  be  read  in  detail  during  the  rest  of 


the  week.  You  will  not  find  me  giving  you  notes  on 
authors  you  barely  know  by  name,  unless  a  knowledge 
of  them  is  required  for  the  understanding  of  the  central 
authors  of  the  year  ;  and  you  will  find  that  even  in  dealing 
with  these  writers,  as  a  whole  I  shall  keep  the  actual  "  set 
books"  constantly  in  view.  It  happens  that  both  your 
books  of  Virgil  for  this  session  have  been  happy  hunting- 
grounds  of  my  own,  and  it  will  be  a  test  of  your  goodwill 
as  much  as  of  my  power  of  expression  if  I  interest  you 
in  questions  not  much  treated  in  text-books.  But  of  the 
learning  by  heart  of  notes  which  bear  no  relation  to  the 
learner's  experience,  I  have  a  horror.  And  I  propagate 
only  with  caution  the  saving  virtue  of  technical  terms. 
In  the  first  Ordinary  examination  paper  set  here  last 
year  I  find  the  question :  "  What  do  you  know  of  Bucolic 
Diaeresis;  Synapheia?''  And  I  should  sympathise  with 
any  candidate's  devout  hope  never  to  suffer  from  either 

of  them. 

I  expect  to  find  that  the  standard  of  work  done  in  the 
Pass  class  is  already  high,  and  that  the  students  themselves 
will  be  desirous  of  maintaining  it  so.  No  one  can  afford 
to  mark  time  nowadays,  even  for  five  or  six  hours  of  the 
week,  and  any  subject  worthy  of  study  under  University 
conditions  is  worthy  of  scientific  treatment. 

That  literary  bias  which  I  should  like  to  give  to  the 
Ordinary  class  will  be  more  easily  acquired  by  Honours ; 
indeed  most  of  them  will  possess  it  already.  But,  seeing 
that  Ancient  History,  Art,  and  Archaeology  have  their 
own  teachers  like  Philosophy  and  Logic,  and  that  the 
Professor  of  Greek  has  brought  back  to  us  an  Edinburgh 
expert  in  Philology,  we  are  free  to  give  Latin  its  natural 
development,  and  to  keep  a  central  purpose  steadily  in 
view. 


12 


The  first  things  a  student  for  Latin  Honours  must 
learn  are  to  read  for  himself  and  to  read  in  bulk.  By  no 
means  must  he  mistake  the  syllabus  of  set  books  for  the 
sum  of  knowledge,  or  lectures  for  its  only  channels  of 
communication.  It  is  true  that  I  design  to  supply  with 
the  aid  of  my  increased  staff  more  classes,  if  not  more 
regular  lectures,  than  heretofore.  But  the  readingjwe  shall 
do  together  is  only  to  enlighten  your  private  reading  and 
to  take  you  deeper  here  and  there  than  you  would 
penetrate  by  yourselves.  Here  too  I  shall  devote  one 
lecture  a  week  to  a  wider  review  of  Latin  literature  than 
the  detailed  books  allow,  spreading  the  course  over  two 
years;  and  the  books  I  read  in  lecture  will  be  usually 
chosen,  one  for  its  prose  style,  one  for  its  difficulty,  and 
one  for  sheer  enjoyment  of  poetry.  My  junior  lecturer 
and  my  assistant,  both  of  them  distinguished  for  original 
research,  will  read  with  Honours  classes,  so  far  as  possible, 
books  where  their  own  special  studies  will  contribute ;  and 
for  the  criticism  of  compositions  and  other  paper  work  they 
will  so  divide  with  me  the  whole  class  that  students  will,  as 
a  rule,  meet  us  in  rotation  and  "pick  the  brains"  of  each 
of  us  in  turn.  That  is  to  say,  that  the  teachers  in  the 
Humanity  school  will  break  definitely  with  an  old 
tradition  which,  since  the  great  advance  of  the  scientific 
study  of  antiquity,  has  not  had  much  to  recommend  it. 
The  assistant's  labour  was  once  slave-labour,  and  not  so 
very  long  ago.  He  "  devilled,"  in  fact  Now,  though  Mr 
James  Mill  has  been  raised  to  the  status  of  Senior  Lecturer 
(but  Edinburgh's  debt  to  his  devoted  service  is  past  all 
assessment),  a  new  junior  Lectureship  has  been  generously 
granted  me  by  the  University,  and  Mr  Mountford,  who 
comes  to  us  from  the  staff  of  Armstrong  College, 
Newcastle-on-Tyne,  will  fill  that  office  and  take  responsi- 
bility under  me  for  the  Higher  Division  of  the  Ordinary 


^3 


class,  as  Mr  Mill,  for  the  Lower  Division.  He  will  expect 
to  be  treated  by  his  own  students  as  a  sort  of  tutor  and 
director  of  studies,  as  well  as  lecturer  ;  and  Miss  Steuart, 
my  assistant,  who  has  been  for  five  years  doing  valuable 
work  for  Honours  students  in  Cardiff  University  College, 
will  expect  to  be  so  treated  by  the  women  students  for 
Honours  here — not  at  all  to  set  a  barrier  between  them 
and  me,  but  to  make  doubly  sure  that  nothing  escapes  me 
that  would  serve  them.  I  have  ventured  to  ask  your 
patience  for  these  domestic  details  of  proposed  administra- 
tion for  this  reason — that  the  value  of  a  teacher's  work  is 
directly  proportionate  to  his  or  her  pride  in  it,  and  that,  for 
such  pride  to  be  generated,  responsibility  must  be  to  some 
extent  deputed  and  a  definite  aim  and  duty  made  clear. 
So  only  will  an  assistant  come  to  take  a  pride  not  only 
in  his  own  work,  but  in  the  prosperity  of  the  Humanity 
school  as  a  whole,  and  by  throwing  his  whole  soul  into  it 
help  to  bind  staff  and  students  in  friendly  bonds  of 
personal  contact  and  sympathy.  We  are  not  omniscient 
or  infallible ;  I  myself  have  done  no  teaching  since  May 
1916,  and  shall  crave  indulgence  for  a  little  rust;  but  we 
are  all  here  at  your  service  and  at  the  service  of  Learning ; 
and  the  most  valuable  thing  we  can  teach  you  is  to  teach 
yourselves.     As  Whitman  says — 

Not  I,  not  anyone  else  can  travel  that  road  for  you, 
You  must  travel  it  for  yourself. 

And  again — 

I  am  the  teacher  of  athletes. 

He  that  by  me  spreads  a  wider  breast  than  my  own,  proves  the  width 

of  my  own  ; 
He  most  honours  my  style  who  learns  under  it  to  destroy  the  teacher. 

An  Honours  course  at  a  University  should  bring 
students  into  touch  with  researchers  and  research,  and 
doors  should  easily  swing  open  which  lead  them  to  the 


H 


pleasant  borderland  between  experience  and  discovery. 
I  was  myself  an  undergraduate  of  twenty-one  when  I 
crossed  that  borderland  and  found  myself  in  print ;  and 
I  owed  my  first  little  exploit  to  an  essay  I  wrote  for 
a  College  Classical  Society.  Your  University  Classical 
Society  is  waking  from  an  enforced  sleep,  and  has  done 
me  the  honour  of  inviting  me  to  herald  in  the  dawn. 
I  hope  to  be  a  frequent  listener  at  its  other  meetings, 
and  that  its  officers  will  not  hesitate  to  call  upon 
me  for  any  help  they  may  require.  And  I  propose 
to  found,  not  a  rival,  but  a  supplementary  Society,  to 
be  called  the  Edinburgh  Roman  Society^  at  which  papers 
will  be  read  and  informal  addresses  given  on  subjects 
bearing  upon  any  side  of  Latin  or  Roman  research,  and 
to  which  I  hope  to  attach  not  only  my  own  Honours 
students  but  some  of  our  friends  in  the  city.  I  shall  be 
glad  to  hear  of  any  such  who  would  like  to  join  us  and 
receive  notice  of  our  meetings.  The  papers  read  to  us, 
and  discussed  among  us,  would  often  be  drafts  of  work 
to  be  put  out  eventually  by  the  Edinburgh  School  of 
Humanity  in  a  learned  journal  or  a  book  ;  for  our  teachers 
must  be  original  workers  or  their  teaching  will  stale,  and 
our  best  students  must  try  their  wings.  Meanwhile  we 
have  a  pleasurable  omen  of  goodwill  outside  our  walls, 
in  an  offer  by  the  Society  of  the  Writers  to  H.M.  Signet 
to  renew  a  long-discontinued  annual  prize  of  books  to  the 
value  of  ten  guineas  "  for  the  best  student  in  the  Senior 
Humanity  Class."  It  is  a  prize  which  was  withdrawn  in 
the  sixties  of  last  century,  when  the  "  Senior  Humanity 
Class "  would  have  meant  our  Ordinary  class.  But  Sir 
George  Paul  assures  me  that  the  Society  intend  this  prize 
to  be  awarded  entirely  at  my  discretion,  but  to  the  actually 
best  scholar  of  the  year,  whom  we  should  all  expect  to  be 
an  Honours  student. 


15 


So  far  I  have  dealt  with  the  practice  of  Classical  teach- 
ing as  I  conceive  it  under  our  special  circumstances  at 
Edinburgh.  My  colleagues  in  Greek  and  French  will,  I 
know,  watch  my  performance  with  benevolence  and  assist 
me  at  every  turn.  But  I  have  not  yet  tried  this  practice  ; 
I  cannot  yet  gauge  how  far  an  atmosphere  favourable  to 
my  ideal  is  already  present.  The  picture  I  have  given 
may  seem  to  outline  a  course  less  austere  and  grey,  a 
softer  doctrine,  a  more  humane  humanity  than  the  old. 
You  may  doubt  the  wisdom  of  any  attempt  to  lighten  the 
routine  work  all  round,  in  order  that  pleasurable  work 
may  flourish.  Yet,  if  you  think  of  it,  culture  need  not  be 
a  painful  process  after  the  first  ordering  and  early  restraint. 
Once  the  apple  tree  is  past  the  tender  age  we  allow  its 
branches  to  curve  at  will,  so  long  as  they  bear  fruit ;  it 
is  often  the  wind  of  chance  that  masses  them  more  on 
one  side  than  the  other.  The  moral  and  mental  discipline 
of  a  University  course  is  but  a  stepping-stone  to  freedom 
of  judgment ;  it  is  stultifying  itself  if  it  only  restrains  and 
does  not  suggest,  if  its  students  remain  like  Peter  Pan, 
"  the  boy  who  wouldn't  grow  up."  The  scientific  mind  is 
being  developed,  and  it  does  not  matter  that  my  students 
are  not  to  use  it  to  make  engines  or  aniline  dyes.  They 
will  be  the  lawyers  and  ministers  and  civil  servants  of 
to-morrow,  and  some  of  them  the  schoolmasters.  But  they 
will  carry  to  those  works  the  minds  we  have  helped  to  give 
them,  and  memory  of  their  studies  according  to  their 
pleasure  and  pride  in  them.  The  culture  of  the  State 
depends  to  no  small  degree  upon  them.  We  must  see  to 
it  that  an  atmosphere  favourable  to  culture  surrounds 
them  here. 

The  educational  advantage  which  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge possess  over  all  the  other  British  Universities 
lies  in  the  crowd  of  specialists  that  congregates  in  their 


i6 


various  colleges.     If  you  have  a  professor  lecturing  three 
times  a  week  only,  and  only  to  advanced  students,  almost 
free  from  administrative  duties,  and   taking   no  part  in 
the  normal  routine  of  papers  or   in  individual  coaching, 
you  can  expect  that  his  lectures  will  be  of  superlative 
excellence,  and  that  his  output  of  original  work  will  be 
considerable.     If  you  have,  as  here,  distinct  professors  or 
lecturers  for  many  subdivisions  of  classical  learning,  your 
University  staff  may  be  but  little  less  numerous  than  the 
University  staff  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge.     But  this  staff 
of  ours  is  also  doing  the  work  which  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge falls   entirely  upon   college   tutors   and   lecturers, 
other  than  those  who  represent  the   University  in   such 
subjects.     Some  colleges,  indeed,  are  so  well  served  that 
there   is   a   temptation    not    to    attend    any    University 
lectures  outside  their  walls  ;  college  lecturers,  too,  become 
specialists,  and  attract  students  from  outside  to  hear  them. 
In  my  own  college,  before  the  war,  about  ten  to  twelve 
candidates  a  year  would  be  taking  the  Classical  Tripos, 
or  about  thirty  in  three  years.     For  this  group  of  thirty 
Honours  men   working  together   we   had   generally  five 
teachers  within  the  college,  doing   all  the  routine  work ; 
then  all  the  University  teachers  to  choose  among,  and 
special  courses  available  in  one  or  two  outside  colleges. 
Besides  that  there  were  scholars  of  inexhaustible  learn- 
ing and  goodwill  all  about   us  to  whom  one  could  turn 
for  any  sort  of  special  inspiration  or  advice. 

While  these  advantageous  conditions  prevail  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge — and  I  hope  they  will  never  be  altered 
for  the  worse — it  is  no  wonder  that  the  best  Scotchmen 
tend  to  complete  their  University  course  at  one  or  the 
other ;  for  the  only  way  of  counteracting  that  tendency, 
if  it  was  desirable,  would  be  to  offer  an  equally  wide 
field  for  specialisation  at  home.     This  would  necessitate 


17 

the  separation,  in  a  University  like  this,  of  the  purely 
routine  work  from  the  professorate,  and  the  creation  of 
a  class  of  tutors  and  assistants  more  numerous  than  our 
present  staffs,  and  much  more  highly  paid,  who  would  in 
so  far  relieve  the  professors  and  render  them  as  free  as 
German  professors  are  to  lecture  on  their  own  special 
subjects,  conduct  a  Seminar,  and  publish  their  work  with- 
out hindrance.  Even  so  you  could  afford  to  leave  no 
subdivision  of  Classical  Study,  such  as  Palaeography  or 
Philology,  unrepresented  among  your  official  lecturers. 
I  think  it  probable  that,  as  time  goes  on,  Edinburgh,  in 
particular,  as  being  an  ideal  University  city,  and  a  true 
capital  of  the  mind  and  soul,  will  chafe  at  the  dominance 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  will  aim  at  a  self-support- 
ing, self-contained,  school  of  advanced  Classical  learning, 
such  as  so  many  German  Universities  provide. 

But  owing  to  the  generous  spirit  in  which  Edinburgh 
has  already  met  my  proposal  for  a  new  junior  lecturer, 
it  will  be  entirely  my  own  fault  if  I  do  not  find  time 
for  the  publication  of  long-overdue  research  work,  with 
which  I  hope  now  to  identify  this,  for  me,  too  illustrious 
Chair. 


Large  sections  of  the  public,  especially  those  which 
have  not  benefited  by  a  University  education — but  they, 
find  leaders  much  closer  home — while  crying  out  for  what 
they  call  "Science"  and  "Research,"  have  been  crying 
down  Classical  education  as  a  system  antagonistic  to  their 
ideals.  You  will  bear  with  me,  I  hope,  if  I  devote  some 
time  to  this  popular  conception  of  the  Classics,  even 
though  it  is  impossible  to  say  much  that  is  new,  and 
though  Mr  Livingstone's  recent  book  in  their  defence 
stands  un refuted. 

University  lecturers  in  Faculties  of  Science  (I  use  the 


i8 


19 


m 

Jli  ' 


il 


term  also  for  convenience)  are,   as   you    know,  very   far 
from  unanimous  in  desiring  specialisation  in  Science  at 
school;   at   my   own   college   there   were   none   who   did 
not  prefer  a  student  to  come  to  them,  if  possible,  fresh 
from  a  general  Classical  education.     The  reason  was,  and 
is,  that  the  scientific  attitude  of  mind  is  far  more  likely 
to  be  induced  in  the  young  by  the  concentrated  critical 
and  logical  training  of  a  Classical  education  than  by  the 
simple  formulas  and  self-evident  classifications  of  the  first 
stages  of  the  so-called  "  modern  "  subjects.     But  there  was 
a  further  reason,  which  perhaps  they  would  hardly  have 
admitted.     Henry  James,  the  American  by  birth,  used  to 
say  that  "more  has  gone  to  make  an  Englishman  than 
any  other  human  being."     (I  have  no  doubt  he  meant  no 
slight  to  the  Scot.)     And   it*  is  certain  that,  as   a   rule, 
"  more  has  gone  to  make  "  a  young  Classical  scholar  than 
a  young  scientist  of  the  same  standing ;  that  his  training 
has  been  more  arduous,  more  detailed,  more  exact   and 
more  exactly  tested^  and  has  set  him  more  problems  and 
left  him  more  to  himself  in  their  solution.     Also,  he  is 
often  far  better  equipped  for  the  leadership  of  men  and 
for  the  experience  of  life ;  for  his  chief  study  has  been  of 
men  and  of  their  thoughts  and  acts  and  records,  and  he 
has  put  out  work  daily  which,  for  better  or  worse,  is  his 
very  own  and  not  the  reproduction   of  formulas  or  the 
clock-work  of  inevitable  calculations.     Whereas  the  young 
scientist's  training,  from  the  season  of  specialisation,  has 
been  almost  entirely  concerned  not  with  men  but  with 
things,  not  with  personality  but  with  external  laws. 

Of  course  these  opinions  will  be  combated ;  but  they 
are  opinions  held  not  only  in  my  College,  which  has  a 
most  distinguished  record  in  Science  (I  am  its  only 
representative  on  the  Arts  sjde  of  your  staff,  but  you 
have   three  more   glorious   luminaries  of  Science  thence 


proceeding),  but  in  every  German  University.  And  the 
science  of  education  has  been  nowhere  more  closely 
studied. 

Of  course,  I  am  as  little  demanding  that  every  boy 
should  specialise  in  Latin  and  Greek  as  that  every 
boy  so  trained  at  school  should  continue  the  subjects  at 
the  University,  or  that  these  subjects,  if  treated  only 
linguistically,  should  qualify  even  their  most  brilliant 
students  for  its  highest  degree.  I  was  speaking  of  the 
educational  value  of  a  concentrated  linguistic  training 
for  a  young  mind  susceptible  to  it.  By  this  educational 
value  the  Classics  will  hold  their  place  in  the  long  run 
against  all  rivals.  For  we  cannot  afford  to  be  a  race  of 
specialists  without  a  background  and  basis  of  general 
education ;  we  cannot  afford  to  let  our  literature  and 
speech  deteriorate  or  our  study  of  human  antecedents  die 
out ;  and  we  cannot  arrive,  as  a  nation,  at  the  fullness  of 
intellectual  power  by  short  cuts  to  practical  success. 
Specialists  in  Science  we  must  have  in  ever  increasing 
numbers ;  but  surely  it  is  not  too  late  to  become  a 
specialist  at  nineteen,  and  the  best  educated  boy  will 
always  be  the  soundest  and  most  adaptable. 

But  the  section  of  the  public  which  wants  **  Science 
and  Research"  little  suspects,  I  think,  to  what  degree 
Classical  studies  contribute  to  both.  There  are  compara- 
tively few  men  and  women  employed  in  Classical  research, 
for  a  very  good  reason,  to  which  I  shall  return.  In  Germany 
there  have  been  far  more  so  employed  than  in  Britain, 
but  of  the  most  excellent  new  work  done  in  'the  last  thirty 
years  we  have  contributed  more  than  our  proportional 
share.  It  is  difficult  to  particularise  names  because  of  the 
omissions  one  would  make,  but  let  me  give  a  few  instances. 

First,  on  the  purely  literary  side,  one  would  name 
Oxyrhyncus  and   the  work   by   Grenfell   and    Hunt   and 


I 


20 

their  collaborators  upon  the  papyri  there  discovered.  The 
chief  treasures  of  that  buried  library  in  Egypt  have 
immensely  enriched  our  store  of  Greek  masterpieces,  but 
also  our  knowledge  of  the  private  life  of  the  later 
Hellenistic  world.  The  Latinist,  who  has  so  far  obtained 
nothing  equivalent  from  the  charred  library  found  at 
Herculaneum,  may  well  groan  with  envy  when  he  thinks 
of  the  copies  of  Cornelius  Gallus,  Ennius,  and  Varro  which 
must  yet  lie  under  the  lava. 

In  the  field  of  scientific  textual  criticism  very  eminent 
work  is  now  being  done  upon  the  text  of  Livy  by 
Professors  Conway  and  Flamstead  Walters;  it  is  not  so 
long  since  Professor  Lindsay  completed  his  new  recension 
of  Plautus,  and  we  have  among  us  in  Professor  Housman 
one  of  the  most  trenchant  critics  and  most  felicitous 
emendators  of  all  time.  But  there  is  a  remarkable  amount 
of  scientific  spade-work  proceeding  in  this  field  with  the 
aid  of  sounder  methods  in  palaeography.  The  recent 
appearance  of  Professor  Lindsay's  Notae  Latinae  and  of 
Professor  Albert  Clark's  Descent  of  Manuscripts  shows 
how  by  concentration  upon  a  particular  region  canons  may 
be  obtained  which  will  affect  a  whole  study.  We  are 
naturally  interested  here  in  Professor  Lindsay's  recruitment 
of  young  Scottish  scholars  for  palaeographical  research  ; 
and  Professor  Hannay  will  tell  you  that  without  palaeo- 
graphical training  Scottish  historians  cannot  advance  any 
more  than  editors  of  Latin  texts. 

The  whole  science  of  Classical  Archaeology  has  been 
evolved  within  about  half  a  century  from  a  dilettante  anti- 
quarianism,  but  one  does  not  now  distinguish  in  method 
between  the  explorations  of  the  Schools  of  Athens  or 
Rome  and  those  in  Egypt,  Palestine,  Crete,  Asia  Minor, 
India— or  the  Firth  of  Forth.  Piercing  through  the  earliest 
ages  of  Greece  and  Rome,  men  like  Professor  Ridgeway 


21 

(but  none  are  quite  like  him)  have  become  pioneers  of 
Anthropology  ;  others,  like  Sir  James  Frazer,  have  brought 
Folklore  to  the  illumination  of  the  Classics,  the  Bible,  and 
modern  life.  Those  who  least  agree  with  their  results 
remain  profoundly  their  debtors.  And  why  ?  Because  of 
the  scientific  methods  adumbrated  and  in  general  em- 
ployed ;  because  of  the  creative  imagination  which  they 
turn  to  the  study  of  Life.  Strata  of  man's  development 
all  over  the  world  are  being  laid  bare  and  reconstructed 
by  researchers  trained  almost  all  of  them  in  the  school  of 
the  Classics,  and  therefore  endowed  with  patient,  logical, 
inductive  minds  and  a  passion  for  the  past  as  fierce  as  the 
Modern  Side's  preoccupation  with  the  future.  Yet  which, 
on  the  whole,  contributes  most  to  To-day,  Yesterday,  or 
To-morrow?  Science  must  not  be  confounded  with 
Futurism — which  would  view  with  rapture  the  destruction 
of  all  memories  of  the  past — nor  the  Spirit  of  Research  be 
mistaken  for  a  genius  of  Commerce. 

Now  why  are  the  numbers  of  Classical  researchers  in 
Great  Britain  so  few  ?  Not  certainly  because  our  standard 
of  attainment  is  limited.  We  have  always  been  a  race  of 
discoverers  and  adventurers ;  that  has  been  the  secret  of 
our  history,  combined  with  our  dogged  refusal  to  admit 
defeat.  The  reason  is  that  Classical  research  is  not 
endowed.  I  have  been  one  of  the  supremely  fortunate 
ones,  in  that  I  obtained  one  of  two  annual  travelling 
studentships  at  Cambridge,  and  was  able  in  the  two  years 
of  my  tenure  to  cover  the  field  of  a  particular  study,  and 
further  in  that,  when  I  laid  that  studentship  down,  I  was 
a  Fellow  of  a  great  College,  and  secure  at  least  from  want 
for  five  years  more.  It  behoves  me  all  the  more  to  declare, 
on  such  an  occasion  as  the  present,  that  the  endowment  of 
Classical  research  has  been  immeasurably  less  adequate 
in   the   past   than  that  of  Technical   research ;   and  you 


iiif 


III  III 


22 

know  how  the  nation  has  awaked  to  the  starved  needs  of 
the  latter. 

The  Government  has  paid  to  our  schools  of  Athens 
and  Rome  a  sum  equivalent  to  the  salary  of  one  professor  ; 
all  other  contributions  fall  upon  the  already  underpaid 
learned  world  itself  and  a  few  private  benefactors. 

There    is    no    central    fund    upon    which    would-be 
researchers  can  draw,  no  subsequent  security  of  career  to 
which  a  professor  could  point  even  the  most  ardent  pupil. 
Great  enterprises  like  those  of  the  Palestine  Exploration 
Fund  are  allowed,  even  before  the  war,  to  be  closed  down. 
You  here  in  Edinburgh  have  been  indeed  generously 
endowed  with  scholarships  and  studentships,  but  few  of 
those  open  to  Classical  scholars  have  actually  been  applied 
to  purposes  of  research,  and  most  have  been  spent  no 
further  afield  than  England.     Your  largest  fund,  however, 
the    Moray    Endowment   for  the  Promotion   of  Original 
Research,  does  open  a  door,  which  is  only  half  closed  by 
the   fourth  of  its  provisions  :  "  in  so  far  as  the  subject  of 
the  research  admits,  the  investigation  shall  be  conducted 
in  the  buildings  of  the  University."     Just  as  I  should  like 
to  see  your  young  architects  visiting  Rome  with  travelling 
scholarships,  in  order  that  the  rest  of  Edinburgh  may  be 
no  less  beautiful  than  its  central  streets  and  the  decoration 
of  its  domestic  buildings  not  fall  behind  the  age  of  Adams, 
so  I  should  like  all  Honours  students  of  Latin  to  have  the 
chance  of  looking  with  their  own  eyes  upon  the  monuments 
of  the  ancient  world,  and  of  proving  to  themselves  that  the 
races  which  made  those  are  worthy  of  our  understanding 
and  our  admiration  to-day.      But  at  least  those  with  special 
aptitudes  should  somehow  have  that  chance,  and  all  who 
are  worthy  to  teach   in  a  University  should  be  able  to 
claim  it  as  a  right.     In  view  of  all   I  have  gained  there 
myself— in  view,  too,  of  the  royal  Order  I  have  the  honour 


23 

to  hold  from  the  King  of  Italy — I  cannot  do  less  than 
offer  to  conduct,  organise,  or  direct  any  party  of  Edin- 
burgh students  who,  by  private  benefaction  or  public 
grant,  may  be  enabled  in  the  spring  vacations  to  visit 
Rome. 

Convinced  as  I  am  that  the  training  provided  by  the 
Classics  remains  without  a  rival  for  the  development  of 
the  scientific  mind,  I  contend  that  for  the  sake  of  the 
national  culture  its  best  products  should  be  by  every 
means  encouraged  and  enabled  to  reach  their  authorities 
at  first  hand.  Schools  of  Literature,  Philosophy,  History, 
and  Art  would  equally  reap  the  benefit  of  an  enlightened 
national  development  of  Classical  research. 

One  of  the  objects  of  an  Inaugural  Lecture  is  to  indicate 
the  point  of  view  of  a  new  professor ;  another  object  is  to 
introduce  him,  not  without  the  spiritual  support  of  his 
seniors,  to  some  at  least  of  his  future  pupils  and  friends. 
But  if  I  am  expected  to  say  anything  about  myself,  more 
than  your  eyes  and  ears  have  so  far  inferred,  I  shall  dis- 
appoint you.  It  is  at  Edinburgh  that  I  must  make  any 
fame  that  will  be  mine  ;  here  my  work  begins. 

I  recently  read  again  Walt  Whitman's  "  Song  of  Myself," 
and  almost  all  I  could  cull  from  it,  suitable  for  a 
professor's  ego,  I  have  quoted  already.  I  have  just  passed 
a  new  birthday  or  I  could  have  echoed  his  preface — 

"  I,  now  thirty-seven  years  old,  in  perfect  health  begin. 
Hoping  to  cease  not  till  death." 

But  that  reminds  me  of  the  words  in  my  commission  :  ad 
uitam  aut  culpam.  There  are  so  many  faults  to  which 
I  am  liable,  not  even  excluding  an  occasional  grammatical 
slip,  that  I  shall  be  fortunate  indeed  to  have  Mr  James 
Mill  at  hand  to  keep  me  firmly  seated  in  my  Chair. 


24 


25 


lllii 


I  I 

llli! 


I  mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture  the  first 
words  of  ^neas  in  the  iCneid.  I  will  close  it  with  a 
reference  to  a  recent  attempt  to  drag  in  the  ego  of  Virgil 
into  the  very  first  words  of  his  final  work,  an  attempt  the 
frustration  of  which  will  suggest  to  us  some  considerations 
illustrative  of  the  science  of  Humanity,  and  provide  a  brief 
example  of  method. 

First    words   to   the    ancient    mind,   far    more    than 
to  ours,  were  words  of  omen,  and,  in  a  sense,  signature. 
The  traditional  first  words  of  the  iEneid,  Arma  uirumque, 
are  familiar  friends  even  to  the  least  classical  memory; 
they  are  constantly  quoted  by  ancient  writers  to  indicate 
by  allusion  the  poem  itself  whose  subject  they  epitomise  ; 
and  they  have  the  further  claim  to  this  position  that  they 
combine  in  one  phrase  allusion  to  the  first  words  of  both 
Iliad  and  Odyssey,  iki\viv,  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  and  ai/Jpa, 
the  wanderer  Odysseus.     The  ^neid  is  an  Odyssey  for 
six  books  to  which  an  Iliad  in  six  books  succeeds.     Ask 
a   schoolboy  the  first  words  of  the  iCneid  and  he  will 
know    them ;    but   turn    to   the   Oxford   text   of    Virgil, 
sent  out  from  that  great  authoritative  press  since  the  year 
1900  to  be  a  Latin  bible  for  schools  and  universities,  and 
you  will  find  a  different  state  of  affairs.     Arma  uirumque 
has  become  the  fifth  verse  and  lost  all  significance.     In 
front  of  it  has  been  inserted  a  passage  to  this  effect : — 
"  That  I  {ille  ego)  who  once  tuned  my  song  on  a  slender  reed 
and  when   I   emerged    from   the   woods   constrained   the 
neighbouring  ploughlands  to  obey  the  yeoman  howsoever 
greedy  (dear  was  my  work  to  husbandmen),  now  on  the 
contrary  Mars'  bristling  .  .  .  arms  and  the  man  do  sing, 
who  first  from  Troy's  beach  to  Italy  came,  by  fate  exiled, 
and  to  the  Lavinian  shores." 

[ille  ego,  qui  quondam  gracili  modulatus  auena 
carmen  et  egressus  siluis  uicina  coegi 


ut  quamuis  auido  parerent  arua  colono, 
gratum  opus  agricolis,  at  nunc  horrentia  Martis] 
arma  uirumque  cano,  Troiae  qui  primus  ab  oris 
Italiam  fato  profugus  Lauinaque  uenit 
litora.  .  .  . 

The  Oxford  editor  tells  us  why  he  has  made  this 
change.  The  four  verses  are  quoted  from  late  com- 
mentators on  Virgil,  who  report  that  one  "  Nisus,  an 
elementary  schoolmaster,  used  to  say  that  he  had  heard 
from  men  older  than  himself  that  Varius  (that  is,  one  of 
Virgil's  executors)  corrected  the  beginning  of  the  first  book 
by  removing  these  verses."  The  editor,  after  admitting 
that  they  are  not  found  in  the  text  of  any  of  our  better 
manuscripts  of  Virgil,  remarks  :  *'  These  most  magnificent 
verses  have  been  wrongly  held  spurious  by  the  majority  of 
editors."  Versus praeclarissimos :  we  will  consider  this  last 
point  first.  The  writer  of  them  is  linking  the  -^neid  to 
Virgil's  previous  works,  the  Georgics  (as  we  call  them), 
concerned  with  every  side  of  husbandry ;  the  Eclogues, 
with  their  woodland  background  ;  and  the  "  Gnat,"  a  very 
immature  poem  to  whose  first  line  verbal  allusion  is  made 
in  the  first  line  here.  Has  he  done  it  well  ?  Is  there  the 
same  economy  and  simplicity  of  words  in  these  verses  as 
in  those  which  follow  ?  It  will  at  once  be  seen  that  the 
word  Martis  adds  nothing  to  arma  except  a  slight 
incongruity  ;  for  the  "  arms  "  of  the  "  man  "  himself  were 
not  so  much  of  Mars  as  of  Vulcan.  Horrentia  is  a  merely 
conventional  epithet.  Then  what  is  the  distinction  between 
the  words  colono  (with  arua)  and  agricolis^  both  of  which 
are  derived  from  the  root  of  colere^  to  cultivate  ?  If  there 
is  no  distinction,  we  have  mere  pleonasm.  And  how  can 
the  poet  who  incites  the  husbandman  to  "  constrain  the 
soil "  to  his  will  be  properly  said  to  "  constrain  the  soil " 
himself  for  the  husbandman's  use?  This  is  possibly 
Silver  Latin,  but  not  an  earlier  style.     Finally,  but  most 


26 


27 


important,  could  Virgil  ever  have  spoken  of  a  *•  greedy 
husbandman"  {quamuis  auido  colono)}  One  chief  moral 
of  his  writings  on  husbandry  is  that  the  tiller  of  the  soil 
has  the  simplest  needs  and  is  free  from  the  avarice  of 
the  towns;  nowhere  does  he  suggest  competition  for 
profits.  But  this  view  of  the  country  man  might  possibly 
occur  to  a  town-bred  man  of  the  Silver  Age,  used  to 
profiteering  market  gardeners.  These  four  verses,  then, 
do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  even  neat,  certainly  not  Virgilian 

in  diction. 

Now  for  Nisus'  story.     This  otherwise  unknown  school- 
master  flourished,  in  Nettleship's  opinion,  in  the  age  of 
Tiberius,  about  half  a  century  after  Virgil's  death.     The 
grammatici  did  not  deal  in  higher  learning,  as  a  rule,  and 
his  word  would  have  weighed  little  in  his  own  age  against 
the  greater  scholars  who  accepted  arma  uirumque  without 
demur.     Had  there  been  any  truth  in  his  story  it  would 
have   been   handed   down  to  us  on  far  better   authority. 
But   Nisus  only   claimed   to   have    it    by   hearsay   from 
unnamed  older  men ;  and  evidently  did  not  himself  read 
the  verses  where  the  Oxford  editor   has   printed   them. 
He  says  expressly  that  Varius,  the  first  editor,  corrected 
tJu  beginning  by  the  removal  of  these  verses.     Nor  does  he 
categorically  assert  that  the    verses    removed    were  by 

Virgil. 

The  story,  like  the  verses,  is  feeble;  but  the  later 
commentators  rescued  both,  for  the  reason  that  every 
scrap  of  Virgil  legend,  true  or  false,  interested  them  ;  and 
they  little  expected  editors  to  arise  who  would  tamper 
with  the  true  text  of  the  iEneid,  attested  by  countless 
references.  Such  editors  did  arise  long  before  1900. 
Spenser  has  even  introduced  an  adaptation  of  the 
verses  into  the  first  stanza  of  his  preface  to  the  Faerie 
Queene : — 


Lo  I  the  many  whose  Muse  whilome  did  maske, 

As  time  her  taught,  in  lowly  Shepheard's  weeds, 

Am  now  enforst  a  far  unfit ter  taske^ 

For  trumpets  sterne  to  chaunge  mine  Oaten  reeds, 

And  sing  of  Knights  and  Ladies  gentle  deeds  ; 

Whose  prayses  having  slept  in  silence  long, 

Mcy  all  too  inenaCy  the  sacred  Muse  areeds 

To  blazon  broad  emongst  her  learned  throng  : 

Fierce  warres  and  faithfuU  loves  shall  moralise  my  song. 

The  difference  of  tone  is  immense.  Spenser  is  over- 
come with  modesty  at  the  threshold  of  his  epic.  Poor 
Colin  Clout  is  far  from  home :  he  "  constrains "  nothing, 
but  is  himself  enforst. 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  final  reason  why  our  verses 
must  be  spurious.  Homer's  ego  is  the  most  elusive  of 
problems ;  you  have  heard  him  even  confused  with  another 
man  of  the  same  name.  But  Virgil  by  all  accounts  was 
the  most  retiring  and  modest  of  men ;  it  must  be  incon- 
ceivable to  those  who  study  his  humane  and  sensitive 
mind  that  he  could  have  set  in  the  forefront  of  his  epic 
of  the  Fates  of  Rome  the  words  ille  ego^  with  its  implication 
of  fame  and  conceit. 

The  editor,  then,  who  attributes  these  feeble  verses  on 
such  feeble  evidence  to  VirgiPs  pen  inserts  them  in  the 
last  place  in  the  world  where  Virgil  could  have  consented 
to  it,  and  that  in  the  face  of  all  the  contemporary  evidence 
to  the  contrary.  Propertius  early  in  the  year  22  B.C.  (as 
I  hold),  when  Virgil  had  been  at  work  upon  the  ^Eneid 
for  more  than  four  years,  says  of  him  in  reference  to 
that  work  :— 

"  He  who  now  rouses  the  arms  of  Trojan  ^neas  and 

the  ramparts  founded  on  Lavinian  shores." 

qui  nunc  Aeneae  Troiani  suscitat  anna 
iactaque  Lauints  moenia  litoribus. 

He  quotes  the  word  arma  in  the  emphatic  last  foot  of  the 
verse,  and  uses  the  exact  phrase,  Lauina  litora^  employed 


28 


29 


Plil! 


by  Virgil  in  verses  2  and  3,  even  down  to  the  contracted 
form  of  the  adjective  from  Latiinium,  So  Propertius 
had  read  the  beginning  of  the  ^Eneid  three  years  before 
it  passed  to  VirgiFs  executors  for  publication,  and  it  began 
with  the  passage  we  know. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  conjecture  the  occasion  for  the 
spurious  lines.  The  fourth  book  of  the  Georgics  does 
end  with  a  modest  autobiographical  note,  a  mere  sub- 
scription in  verse,  by  which  the  poet  claims  as  his  own 
the  first,  second,  and  third  books  preceding,  and  also  his 
earlier  bucolic  Eclogues,  whose  first  verse  he  here  quotes 
in  his  last.  In  a  complete  edition  of  Virgil,  such  as 
would  not  appear  till  long  after  the  separate  publication 
of  the  iEneid,  this  subscription  would  fall  immediately 
before  the  first  verse  of  the  ^neid,  and  might  suggest, 
either  to  an  editor  or  a  student,  an  exercise  in  imitation, 
which  should  purport  to  link  up  the  iCneid  also  with  the 
rounded  whole  of  the  rest.  The  author  of  this  exercise 
I  conceive  to  have  been  Nisus  himself,  the  schoolmaster, 
whose  legend  is  our  only  ancient  source  for  the  verses, 
and  whose  word  would  be  of  no  value  for  any  composi- 
tions but  his  own. 

I  have  not  inflicted  this  fragment  of  criticism  upon 
you  merely  to  point  out  that  even  Oxford  is  not  infallible, 
though  I  hope  that  pressure  of  opinion  may  some  day 
cause  the  Clarendon  Press  to  reset  the  one  page  con- 
cerned ;  for  it  stultifies  a  handy  book. 

I  wished  to  close  with  a  concrete  and  easy  example 
of  what  scientific  method  in  Classical  studies  means.  A 
number  of  very  delicate  perceptions  go  to  the  formation 
of  judgment  on  such  a  point  as  that  I  have  briefly  dis- 
cussed. One  has  to  have  a  sense  of  the  value  of  the 
particular  manuscript  tradition,  as  against  hearsay 
evidence  claiming  far  greater  antiquity  than  any  of  our 


manuscripts.  One  has  to  have  a  sense  of  VirgiPs  economy 
of  language  and  to  be  acquainted  with  his  personal  char- 
acter. One  must  know  what  his  contemporaries  said  of 
the  .^neid,  and  how  far  their  literal  references  can  be 
weighed  as  evidence  of  his  exact  words.  On  the  other 
hand,  one  must  not  be  led  away  by  critics  of  brilliant  but 
imperfectly  balanced  judgment,  such  as  Dr  Henry,  who 
probably  influenced  the  Oxford  editor,  but  whose  note  on 
this  question  is  a  monument  of  how  cumulative  evidence 
for  one  conclusion  can  be  used  as  a  proof  of  the  opposite. 

The  human  element  is  always  tripping  us  up  in  the 
Humanities;  but  only  the  accurate,  independent,  un- 
flinching judgment  of  the  scientific  mind,  and  the 
knowledge  bred  of  reasoning  research,  will  ever  be 
worthy  of  the  great  studies  you  have  elected  me  to 
represent.  You  may  be  able  to  decide  in  ten  years 
whether  I  have  the  gifts  required  of  a  Professor  of 
Humanity,  and  whether,  after  the  last  five  years  of 
"fierce  warres,"  my  teaching  can  make  the  Classics  for 
your  "  Knights  and  Ladies  "  a  well  of  clear  thinking  and 
reasoned  delight,  but  something  too  of  a  romance  of 
"gentle  deeds" — 

Whose  prayses  having  slept  in  silence  long, 
Me,  all  too  meane,  the  sacred  Muse  areeds 
To  blazon  broad  emongst  her  learned  throng. 


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